Research On Online Shopping Herd Behavior:a Study From The Perspective Of Perceived Risk

The rapid development of online shopping has made the competition between the online stores increasingly fierce. Consumers are accustomed to buying products ranking high or with favorable comments. It is deeply concerned about how to develop sells strategies and get more favorable comments.This study focused on the cases that herd behavior resulting in the high-ranking products selling even more. Based on the Stimulus and Response theory, this study developed an online shopping herd behavior model from perceived risk perspective. This would provide online sellers some theoretical bases and practical advices.This work reviewed some previous studies about the perceived risk and herd behavior. Based on the Stimulus and Response (S-O-R) theory, this work tried to unveil the mechanism of which factors of products affect the herd behavior most. Through reviewing related papers and interviewing with users, the perceived risk factor was included into the model as an intervening variable, and the online shopping personal factors were integrated into the herd behavior model.To assess this model, experiments were carried out in3aspects:price (high and low), brand awareness (high and low), type (search and experience). To better assess conformity behavior, every products were divided into two group,favorable comments and negative comment, thus12experiments were designed. The experiment web page was based on the Tmall (www.tmall.com), trying to simulate the real online shopping situations. The data was analyzed with the SPSS18.0.Through this study, four conclusions are made.1. Factors of products (prices, brand awareness, type) affect the perceived risk of consumers, especially when they buy high prices, low brand awareness and experience products.2. Factors of products affects the conformity behavior, obviously when they buy high prices, low brand awareness and experience products.3. Perceived risk of products would affect the conformity behavior.4. Perceived risk of products is found to be affected by the consumer factors (Product knowledge, online shopping experience, risk attitude). When consumers have poor product knowledge, rare online shopping experience and be afraid to take risks, the factor of products affects the perceived risk most obviously.